Tucson Weekly: Twenty-Seven Reasons... (April 23

Twenty-Seven Reasons...

National Crime Victims' Rights Week
By The Editors
YES, ONCE AGAIN it's National Crime Victims' Rights Week (April 19-25). So far this year there have been 27 murders--that we know of--in Pima County. Each one of these victims was a real person, with family, friends and a life worth living. A life that will be forever denied due to...what? A brief, angry impulse on the part of someone bigger, stronger, or better armed?
Nope--the real reason most killers kill is simple: They're just pathetically stupid.
Currents Somehow, they've managed to get through their lives without examining the nature of good and evil, or acquiring an adequate set of values. Sure, we can blame TV, movies, rap music, poor parenting, the easy availability of guns, and any number of other factors, but a basic numbness of the mind and heart must exist before one human being can deliberately kill another. The following list, then, is a small and very painful reminder that humanity has far to go before we achieve even a semblance of grace or perfection.
And the year isn't even half over--there's still a chance that you, or someone you love, could be on this list by year's end.
So look around, and ask yourself how many stupid, valueless creeps there are in your life. Then avoid them like the plague they are.
Sound too simplistic? Perhaps. And certainly not everyone on the following list of victims would have been saved if they'd followed our advice. But most would have. Does your husband beat you? Then leave him--even if you love him. Is some juvenile turd talking tough at the drive-in? Then drop everything and scram.
Apparently murderers are too stupid to think about what they're doing. And all the cops, prosecuting attorneys and judges in the world aren't powerful enough to save one person who willingly hangs around a potentially violent moron. That leaves the rest of us, one person at a time, to deal with the evil fools blighting our lives.
The blame may be theirs, but the responsibility is ours.

David Torres, 24, stabbed 1/3/98 Walt Vanderbilt, 39, drugs 1/3/98 David Nickel, 18, stabbed 1/27/98 Richard Andre, 18, shot 1/30/98 Edith Campos, 15, asphyxiated 2/2/98 Danny Tocco, 22, shot 2/9/98 Edgar Durazo, 30, shot 2/9/98 Mario Marquez, 25, blunt force trauma (brick) 2/14/98 Richard Lofton 22, stabbed 2/21/98 Marisela Gastelum, 29 shot 2/23/98 James Wilford, 18, shot 3/1/98 Johnny Corrales, 23, shot 3/1/98 Ron Childrey, 49, stabbed 3/5/98 Steven Nuss, 42, asphyxiated 3/8/98 Maria Colores, 37, asphyxiated 3/8/98 "Jane Doe," Blunt force trauma 3/8/98 Jeffery David, 46, shot 3/9/98 Henry Bruton, 48, shot 3/12/98 Andrew Brook, 1, drowned 3/12/98 Alzinia Fontane, 26, shot 3/12/98 Estevan Canez, 10, shot 3/21/98 John Hughes, 44, shot 3/25/98 Harry Cook, 40, blunt force trauma (pipe) 4/5/98 Billie Jo Aurthur, 19, asphyxiated 4/6/98 Michael Locklin, 32, shot 4/14/98 Michael Bowers, 34, cause unknown 4/15/98
Jesse Banuet, 22, shot 4/19/98

A candlelight vigil to commemorate murder victims, sponsored by Parents of Murdered Children and Homicide Survivors, will be held at 6 P.M. Saturday, April 25, at Children's Memorial Park .

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